


Underneath the Mistletoe

by chalk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Christmas, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, they both have anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 09:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalk/pseuds/chalk
Summary: While Kenma and Kuroo are out together to see the local Christmas lights, they find a special display for taking festive pictures. If only they had paid closer attention toallof the decorations...
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 14
Kudos: 99





	Underneath the Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I wrote this hoping to drag myself out of a nasty writing slump, but it’s also my first fic for the fandom so apologies if it’s a little rough around the edges 😭 
> 
> I’ve been in the mood to write a bunch of Haikyuu Christmas themed fics so there might be a few more around after this one maybe 👉👈

Kuroo liked Christmas just a little bit more than Kenma did. Of course, it wasn’t like Kenma was a Scrooge or anything. He appreciated that it made the people around him happy even if he wasn’t particularly festive himself, minus the reindeer antlers Kuroo made him wear sometimes, and he liked the deals on all the new games that came out that time of year, but nothing compared to how much  _ Kuroo  _ liked it.

As soon as December first came around, his friend’s eyes lit up like a downtown Christmas tree, bringing to life a side of him that not many people other than Kenma got to see. (He had wondered before if Kuroo still secretly believed in Santa Claus, and he wouldn’t have put it past him).

But that year Christmas was a little bit different. They were older and wiser and no longer two small boys sitting under the tree opening presents together because their parents had long gotten used to buying for them both. No, they were mature and experienced in things of the world having been to Nationals and with Kuroo being a full-fledged university student and all.

Now that they were  _ grown _ , they decided to go out instead to see the decorations in the city together, which Kenma wasn’t sure how that was such a grownup thing to do, but if Kuroo was happy, he was happy too.

Sort of.

It was so cold that Kenma’s hands shoved deep into his pockets throbbed and his lungs burned every time he took a deep breath. Kuroo wore a brave face, but he wasn’t fooling anyone with his red-tipped nose and the slight chatter to his teeth whenever he smiled giving him away. If they were both that cold, Kenma didn’t see why they had to be there at all, but Kuroo wouldn’t hear it.

If it were up to Kenma, they would have been home underneath a heated blanket while Kenma played one of his new games and Kuroo watched a movie or napped or something but  _ no  _ they had to both be cold and miserable because Kuroo loved Christmas and wanted to see the lights.

  
  


They walked for a bit, both shivering and uncomfortable, but Kuroo beamed, and for that Kenma kept his mouth shut. He knew he could be difficult at times, but he did happen to put his best friend first whenever he could so he endured it this time too. And he knew that  _ somehow  _ Kuroo would make it up to him. 

Kenma huddled against himself, letting his hair act as a shield from the wind as they walked, and suddenly something in the near distance caught Kuroo’s attention.

“Look,” he pointed. It was a well-lit display with two fake Christmas trees decorated with all the bells and whistles, a candy striped arch overhead, and an artificial snowy floor to stand on.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, let’s go see,” Kuroo said. He reached back and grabbed Kenma by the elbow to pull him along with him, knowing that if it were up to Kenma, he would have  _ not  _ gone out of his way to check out the seemingly innocuous Christmas display. Kenma tripped over his feet as he hurried along beside him while Kuroo went towards it like an excited puppy. “Hey, I think you’re supposed to take pictures here.”

“That’s nice,” Kenma mused. Kuroo looked back at him, and his mouth twitched. “Nuh uh. No way.”

“Oh come on,” he whined. “I need a new profile picture. It’ll be fun!”

“I did not agree to have my picture taken today.”

“I can’t remember you ever agreeing to have your picture taken,” Kuroo considered at Kenma’s expense. Kenma frowned. “Pretty please.”

“Nope.”

“It’ll be your Christmas present for me,” he offered. Kenma wasn’t convinced. “I’ll cover the cost of that new character skin you wanted…”

“One picture should be good, right?”

Kuroo let out a victorious  _ yes _ under his breath as he positioned himself under the arch. Kenma reluctantly took his place next to him, feeling like the complementary lighting around them was a spotlight beaming down uncomfortably on them. Kuroo, unbothered by the pseudo-attention, raised his phone above their heads to take their picture. 

Usually for these sorts of things, it was commonplace to ask a stranger to take the picture for whoever was posing instead, but Kuroo and Kenma both had anxiety and were used to taking care of things themselves. 

Kenma was ready to throw up a quick peace sign when suddenly Kuroo frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“You can’t see the decorations,” he said. “Just the fake snow.”

“That’s because you’re too tall,” Kenma said.

“No, you’re just short. Here, maybe if we take it from below,” he said, pointing the screen up towards the sky so that the trees (and the underside of Kenma’s chin) were on display. 

Horrified, Kenma tried to grab the phone from his hand, but that’s when disaster struck. 

“You can’t take a photo from belo–,” Kenma started, but then he saw it. He saw it before Kuroo did because if Kuroo had seen it first he would have made a dozen jokes just to watch Kenma turn fifteen different shades of red, but he was still too focused on taking his new profile picture to see it. Without thinking, Kenma looked up, and so did Kuroo. 

“Is that?”

“Nope.”

Kuroo let out a laugh that sounded just as surprised and flustered as Kenma felt on the inside. Neither one of them noticed it before, too distracted by the lights to really pay attention to the details, but pinned right at the top of the arch above their heads was a piece of mistletoe.  _ “Well.” _

“I guess they meant for couples to use this,” Kenma mused, still looking up at the leaves like it was going to jump down and bite him.

“I guess so,” Kuroo laughed distantly. “What are the odds?”

“Yep, guess we should get going then so we don’t get in anyone’s way,” Kenma declared before turning to run off to somewhere where people weren’t expected to kiss.

“Now hold on,” Kuroo stopped him. “We didn’t take our photo and, well…”

“Well what,” he blinked, looking up at him. Kuroo’s nose was still bright red, but now so were his cheeks and ears, and Kenma wasn’t sure if that was from the cold or from something else. Based on the pounding in his own chest, he thought he might have had an idea.

Kuroo looked up and laughed. “When in Rome?”

Kenma folded his arms across his chest subconsciously, reminded of how cold it was. “This is for people you’re dating, not me.”

“Do you want me to date people who aren’t you?”

The question was too blunt, too direct, and Kuroo blinked quickly at himself for saying it. Kenma was frozen in place, ears ringing and body quickly heating from the bottom up. It was a question Kenma couldn’t answer, but he wasn’t sure if Kuroo wanted him to, but he had to say  _ something  _ based on the look of terror on his best friend’s face. That’s what friends did, wasn’t it? They said things to help their friends out when they were in a bind. Only, Kenma’s mouth wasn’t doing the best friend thing.

“I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it before.”

Wrong answer.

Kuroo looked at him in a way he never had before. It wasn’t  _ anger _ . He had seen Kuroo angry before after getting all of his spikes shut out for a full game or when the old third years used to make Kenma clean up the messes they made on purpose because they liked to watch him huff and puff around. No, Kuroo wasn’t angry at all, but Kenma had no idea what this was. He prided himself on reading people and knowing Kuroo better than he knew himself, but this look was completely unreadable.

He stepped forward and put his hand to Kenma’s cheek, tilting his jaw up ever so slightly, and Kenma let him. It was gloved, but the warmth still slipped through, casting a spell on him that made it impossible to step away. “What if I did?”

Kenma’s eyebrows drew together as an unfamiliar pain struck his chest and stomach, and if Kuroo hadn’t been holding him up with the slightest touch of his fingertips, he was sure he would have doubled over and wretched. 

Kuroo going there to kiss someone who wasn’t him. Kuroo  _ dating  _ someone who wasn’t him.

He thought of the best options. Tsukki? Kind of prickly, but Kuroo seemed to like him for some reason. Probably because he was an easy target to bother, but that wasn’t ideal for kissing, he thought, although it wasn’t like he wouldn’t know. Daichi? A nice, well rounded guy who would probably take good care of Kuroo, but there was a weird tension there that made him think they would never relax around each other. Bokuto? Chaotic, but he could see it if Akaashi was fine with a third. As long as Kuroo was happy...

“If that’s what you wanted,” he managed to say, the feeling of bile coating the back of his tongue. “You're my best friend. I’ve never stopped you from doing what you wanted to do.”

“That’s true,” he said. He reached up for Kenma’s other cheek, cupping his face in his hands in the warmest way possible. “So what if I kissed you under the mistletoe instead.”

“There’s no one around to make you,” he said, assuming these things were meant to rouse hoops and hollers at some poor fool’s expense. This time it was Kenma’s.

“But what if I wanted to?”

Kenma’s face went hot all at once. Sure he had thought about kissing Kuroo, but apparently that was a sentiment shared by most of the people who saw him. He was good looking and charismatic, and people like that tended to make people want to kiss them even if they were frustrating and a little insane. But more than that, Kuroo was kind and helpful and a good leader and he looked after Kenma. If anyone deserved to be kissed, it was him, and maybe Kenma wanted to a little more than he had realized.

His eyes grew heavy as the expectation washed over him. It wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, to be kissed by Kuroo. He waited, wondering what it felt like. What he tasted like. If this was the worst idea he had ever had. If it was the worst idea Kuroo had ever had.

And then it was gone. 

Kuroo flashed a smile and laughed, shaking his head like he was recalling a fond memory that Kenma couldn’t see. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“What,” Kenma’s eyes fluttered open. He stood alone under the arch as Kuroo walked off with his hands shoved in his pockets. 

“You wanted cocoa right?” Kuroo called out over his shoulder.

“What about your picture?”

“Couldn’t get the angle right,” he shrugged. “No one wants to see two dudes hanging out in some fake snow, right?”

“Right,” he said more so to himself. “No one wants to see that.”

In a daze he followed him until they found a vendor selling hot chocolate, sausages on sticks, and hot stuffed bread perfect for winter. Kenma never did have much of an appetite, but right then especially he didn’t think he could stomach any of it. He only got the hot cocoa because he was cold and he didn’t want Kuroo to know that he was sick to his stomach with nerves. He didn’t want Kuroo to know that him  _ not  _ kissing him unnerved him just as much as him pretending like he was going to. He especially didn’t want Kuroo to know that the thought of it being someone else had never crossed his mind before because it was a possibility that he couldn’t accept.

“Kuro–.”

“Well that was fun.”

“Let’s sit down,” Kenma suggested, desperate to fix the mood before his insides imploded. “I think there’s a free bench over there.”

“You’re too cold though, right?”

“I don’t want to spill this all over myself while walking,” he scrambled to find an excuse to stay.

Kuroo’s words were short and sharp, coming out of him like he was talking to his old teammates during a timeout. It had been especially useful for condensing Kenma’s own observations into a message the rest of the team could absorb in less than thirty seconds. It was precise and effective, and now it was being used to convey a message that Kenma didn’t like: I want to go home.

It was a perfectly rational thing to want. Kenma wanted to go home too, but the thing he was most afraid of was that he couldn’t shake the feeling that if they left like that, he might not have seen Kuroo again for a very long time.

“Please,” Kenma tried.

Kuroo glanced at him and exhaled deeply before conceding. It was only a small victory, but he had to make it count. 

They sat down together with an usual space apart, big enough to fit another small sized person. Hinata maybe. He kind of wished Hinata was there to break the silence because he wasn’t sure he knew anyone else who could have so easily. It definitely wasn’t easy for him.

They sat quietly for a while, sipping on their cocoa, and if it had been any other day, Kenma would have slumped lazily against him while playing one of his games. That’s all he wanted was for things to go back to normal, but now they couldn’t even sit close to each other like they always have. How could he even begin to say he was sorry in a way that made it better?

“Kuro, I–.”

“I’m sorry for dragging you out here with me,” he said flatly.

“You didn’t drag me. That’s what I’m here for.”

“You don’t like stuff like this, and it’s too cold out.”

“So,” he challenged him. “I would have said no if I didn’t want to come with you.”

“But–.”

“When have we ever done something that the other person wasn’t okay with,” Kenma asked. “Or something we didn’t want to do just because the other person wanted to.”

Kuroo didn’t look at him, and something brave and daring got into Kenma that must have been from the cup of hot chocolate he downed. He sat the cup down next to his feet so that it wouldn’t spill and turned towards him.

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was just kidding around. Sorry.”

Kenma frowned. “No you weren’t. I can tell when you’re joking and you don’t joke with me like that.”

He looked at him with sad, tired eyes, clearly not wanting to go on any further. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

“You’re mad at me,” he said before swallowing down a little too hard. “Don’t deny it, I know you. You’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You’re pissed, and you won’t let me fix it.”

“You can’t fix it,” he frowned. “This is a me problem, and I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re–.”

“I just got my feelings hurt a little,” he exhaled. “It happens.”

“Why,” his voice cracked.

“Because I didn’t know it wasn’t an option for you until now.”

“What… wasn’t?”

Kuroo looked away and shook his head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it, really. I’ll get over it.”

“Well I’m gonna,” he half shouted, arms pressed against his own burning stomach that threatened to empty itself before they got to the bottom of things.  _ “Please.” _

“Us,” he waved. “That. I didn’t know that was just me.”

Kenma’s mouth fell open, speechless. It wasn’t. It wasn’t just him. It  _ wasn’t _ . “It’s not.”

“Kenma, don’t–.”

“It’s not, damn it,” he said, panic rising in his chest. His whole body burned up in a different way that only happened when he was in a crisis, and even if it was freezing outside, he was seconds away from pulling off all of his layers and laying down on the icy cold bench to cool off while he shut down. He had to fix this fast. “It didn’t occur to me that you would have gone there with someone else.”

Kuroo looked at him and blinked, and Kenma continued. 

“I mean, I didn’t think you would go there with me for that reason before because we do everything together anyways, but I just meant that the thought of you wanting to kiss someone who wasn’t me hadn’t crossed my mind before because I didn’t know that was even a possibility.”

“It’s not,” he muttered, still staring dumbly. “I mean it wasn’t.”

“And what about now?”

“I don’t know,” Kuroo admitted. “I need some time to think.”

“Okay,” Kenma ignored the sickness taking over. He ignored the pounding in his chest and the burning in his eyes. He ignored every sign in his body telling him to pull the plug on his own feelings because it was in those few moments did he realize that the thought of losing Kuroo, hurting Kuroo, was a thousand times worse than every stresser he had ever encountered combined.

He scooted towards him and grabbed Kuroo’s jacket by the folds and took a determined breath.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ve always said that a person should finish what they started, right?” Kenma almost choked on his own words, but luckily they came out in the order they were supposed to. “All those stupid drills we had to do even when we were tired, and even when I wanted to give up on a game I didn’t like because the boss was stupid, you’d tell me to finish it since I started it.”

Kuroo opened his mouth to speak, but Kenma wasn’t finished scolding him.

“So why the hell won’t you finish what you started, coward,” Kenma shouted. Kuroo paused before bursting out into a loud roar and throwing his arms around Kenma’s shoulders and pulling him to his chest in a warm embrace. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” he said into Kenma’s beanie. 

“I’m not angry…”

“Could have fooled me,” he sighed, giving him a squeeze. “You yelled at me and called me a coward.”

“You are a coward,” Kenma pouted.

“How so,” he asked, still hugging him.

“You didn’t kiss me under the mistletoe.”

“You didn’t say I could.”

Kenma blinked. “Oh.”

“I may be an asshole, but I can take a hint.”

“No you can’t.”

Kuroo snorted and pulled away. “What do you mean?”

Kenma looked down at his hands still holding onto Kuroo’s jacket. What was he about to do? Why did it feel like he was about to kiss his best friend?

He looked up at him, and Kuroo stared back with shaking eyes traveling all over Kenma’s face trying to read him because apparently the answer was clear to them both.

He was.

He pulled Kuroo towards him in a manner that was just as precise as it was clumsy, but when their lips met, any second guessing himself he had left melted away and was replaced with a prickle that started in his chest and moved into his toes and fingertips. 

Kuroo’s arms slid comfortably around his neck as the kiss deepened as much as it could before one of them broke, and when Kuroo finally did, Kenma left a flurry of pecks against his smile before slipping down into the crook of his neck where he could hide until his nerves settled back down.

He quivered in shock, but Kuroo held him patiently, giving him all the time he needed to calm down while he gently nuzzled the side of his head and rubbed his back.

“You didn’t have to,” he said quietly once Kenma settled down.

He let out a gasp of frustration he had been holding in and buried himself deeper into Kuroo’s neck.

“I love you, you jerk,” he said, muffled by the skin he refused to peel himself away from.

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Kuroo said coolly, but Kenma knew he was just as freaked out as he was. In fact, if he wasn’t holding Kenma up, he would have been buried in  _ his  _ neck instead. 

“Liar,” he groaned. “Say it back.”

“Okay, I love you too,” he said quietly, squeezing Kenma with all his might, and Kenma let him even if his whole body ached all over because Kuroo needed it just as much as he did.

Kenma muttered a few more  _ I love you’s _ into the safety of his neck like a prayer because, for one, he really did mean it, and two, he had hurt the one person he was never supposed to, and he refused to go home that night without mending him as much as he could because that’s what Kuroo would have done for him too.

  
  


On the way back, Kenma let Kuroo pull his hand into his pocket to keep them both warm. They were quiet again, but this time it was a quiet he could live with like when they spent the whole day together in silence just enjoying each other’s company. This was a quiet he wasn’t afraid of.

“Nothing has to change, you know,” Kuroo said finally. “I mean, I don’t want this to be something you have to worry about.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And it’s okay if some things change.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like this,” Kenma squeezed his hand. “This could be nice.”

Kuroo shook his head. “Not when you’ve always got a console or your phone in your hands.”

“Shut up,” he whined, and Kuroo laughed.

“Alright, holding hands now is fine,” he nodded. “Anything else?”

“What do you want?” Kenma asked. Kuroo glanced at him and flushed before looking straight ahead in front of them without saying whatever it was that came to mind. “That… could be nice too.”

Kuroo looked at him in surprise. “You don’t even know what I was thinking!”

“It’s not too hard to guess,” he laughed.

Kuroo bumped into him playfully. “You’re gonna have to spell it out for me so I don’t get the wrong idea.”

“You cut that out.”

_ “No,”  _ he flashed him a smile, very much back to the normal, incredulous Kuroo that Kenma had loved for most of his life, and now it seemed that he was going to learn what it meant to love him in new ways that he had never imagined before, but as long as he was the only one who got to love him in those ways, he supposed it could be something he could get very used to too.

Maybe Kuroo was on to something for liking Christmas as much as he did after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!!! I really hope you enjoyed it 🥺 thank you ❤️


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